“It was a big, happy family. And I felt that this music held everybody together longer maybe than we would have been.”

Etta Reid Baker came from a family of musicians that included her cousins Elizabeth Moore Reid (and her husband Fred Reid) and Cora Reid Phillips, who lived close together in Caldwell County, North Carolina, and who continued to “make music” after the passing of older relatives who had taught them to play. In their lifetimes Etta Baker became the best known, winning prizes and performing in many festivals.